ButcherPete
patreon
Chapter 69: Nice
🕑 Added 2025-06-13 17:37:11 +0000 UTCThe small temple was new.
Tucked into a quiet clearing a distance from the dream fissure, it didn’t advertise itself. No official banners. No religious markings. Just a narrow arch of dark marble and a scent of warm stone and wax. The space beyond was simple, no grand tapestries, no gilded altars. Just a single sculpture at the far end of the room.
The statue bore no name. Its form was only a suggestion of a devil, blindfolded, crouched, bound in heavy script-chains, and pinned to the floor by three obsidian stakes driven through its limbs. Its face had been deliberately carved without clarity. Smooth, half-formed, as if the truth of its identity had been forgotten… or erased.
No one in the fortress knew who the temple honored.
Not the acolytes kneeling in reverent silence.
Not the noble guests who bowed politely at the threshold.
Not even the builders who had placed each stone.
Only Hannya.
She knelt before the statue like a widow before a grave, draped in veils and moon-colored silk. Her sleeves fell around her hands like flowing ink, unmoving even as dream mist curled low across the floor.
She did not speak. But her aura pulsed in rhythm with her thoughts.
Vainglory.
Her lips curled behind the veil. The corners of her eyes trembled, almost smiling.
‘You’d hate this room. Too quiet. Too plain. But I had them match the chill of the old Superbia northern shrine. Remember how the snow would freeze mid-air around your magnificent aura? So dramatic. So divine.’
She didn’t move. But her heart thumped faster.
‘You’ll be back soon. Once I evolve again, I’ll reach into that abyss Greed buried you in, and I’ll rip open the seams like paper. You’ll step through, shirt torn, eyes glowing, blood on your knuckles…haaah n-nice.’
Her breath caught, slightly. No one noticed. Except one.
Shela.
From her place near the back, Shela stood silently, arms crossed, gaze steady. But her eyes narrowed, not at the altar, but at Hannya. There was a flicker of something strange in the woman’s posture. Too still. Too calm. Like heat pressed beneath porcelain.
Shela couldn’t name it. But she noticed.
Beside her, Salitha whispered, “She’s devoted. Most nobles wouldn’t kneel this long, even for a god they claimed in public.”
“She’s not kneeling for a god.” Shela murmured.
Salitha tilted her head, confused, but let it go.
Back near the altar, Hannya’s thoughts giggled beneath her veil.
‘And when you come back, oh, my love… You’ll burn those bastard heroes like dry paper. Pantheon's finest? Stepping stones. Damien and his little circus of stolen powers? Gone. The saintlings? The law-favored? Splattered! Kikiki! I’ll watch them scream your name like it’s a prayer, and I’ll be right there beside you, heels stained with their blood, smiling reassuringly.’
Her thighs pressed just a little tighter together beneath her robes.
‘You don’t even know how beautiful you are when you're cutting gods in half. You don’t need an army, just your bare hands. But I’ll still give you one, just so you can toss it aside and make a point.’
Her fingers twitched in her lap.
The statue watched silently, faceless.
She inhaled slowly. Carefully. Containing herself.
‘No one else will touch you. That’s non-negotiable. But I don’t need to keep you in a box. Just let them know who you are. Let them kneel first. Then die.’
The final temple bell rang, hollow and high.
The acolytes bowed low. Even Salitha lowered her head in mild reverence.
Only Shela kept watching.
Hannya stood with perfect grace, robes flowing like ink in dreamwater. Her veil remained low, her presence demure. But Shela caught it, the faint flush at her throat. The shimmer of heat beneath the elegance.
Something wasn’t right.
But no one else saw it.
To the world, Hannya left the temple as a picture of discipline.
Inside, her heart was skipping ahead to date nights after massacres, cooking lessons over the bones of their enemies, and a world finally shaped to the truth:
Vainglory was not dead.
He was only waiting for her.
‘We’ll have our own room, of course. Somewhere high, with windows overlooking the dream fissure. I’ll make sure your name is written into the mountain. No stress. No more betrayal. Just silk robes, soft meals, and me braiding your hair while you pretend not to enjoy it… kikiki, cold handsomes really are the best!’
Hannya’s lips twitched behind the veil. Her mind floated through those fantasies with the serenity of a dream, but always sharpened at the edges. In her visions, Vainglory didn’t just return. He ascended.
‘They’ll cry when they see you again. Beg for forgiveness. But you’ll only look at me, curious about the evening’s events together as you bring your sword down on them.’
She took another step forward through the stone hallway. The prayer still thrummed in her bones. Her blood felt hot, but in that sweet way. Like standing too close to an oven waiting for bread to rise.
‘You’ll kill them gently, won’t you? With just enough mercy to make it hurt worse. I’ll help you clean your armor after. Maybe I’ll polish your spear while you tell me what it was like gutting a demigod with no effort.’
Her eyes spun a bit.
‘Kikiki, oopsies, that's not a spear, Vain. Thats-’
“Lady Hannya.” came a voice from just outside the hall.
The image shattered.
Hannya halted mid-thought, and for a moment her aura flared, a subtle crackle, barely noticeable to the untrained. The veil of dream-state devotion that had wrapped around her like silk was torn.
The voice belonged to a young demon servant, nervous, thin, head bowed so low his head nearly touched his knees.
“Yes?” Her tone was calm. Even gentle. But Shela, still walking several steps behind, noticed the sliver of sharpness tucked behind the voice.
“A man’s at the gate,” the servant said quickly. “He’s wearing the emblem of the Capital’s Justiciary. He… he brought soldiers.”
Hannya stood still for half a breath longer than normal.
‘The capital and their dogs dare edge me!?’
She smiled beneath the veil; she spoke softly. “Did he give his name?”
“He said…” The servant swallowed. “He said the Dog of the Capital has arrived and that Hellnia’s leash has gotten too long.”
A beat of silence.
Even the wind outside the corridor seemed to hold its breath.
Hannya’s smile remained unseen. Her aura smoothed like glass.
“Kindly inform him,” she said, “that I am in the middle of my morning rites, and I will receive him when the incense finishes burning.”
The servant blinked at the words. Should they really keep the capital waiting?
She tilted her head, just slightly.
“Unless he would prefer to speak to the ash.”
He bowed so fast his knees nearly gave out and fled the hallway with a murmur of apologies.
As his footsteps vanished, Hannya turned her head just enough to glance behind her.
“Shela.”
The warrior straightened. “Yes?”
“Would you kindly accompany me to the northern gate when I finish?”
“Of course.”
“Excellent.” Hannya’s voice didn’t change. “I would prefer to greet our guest in person. A man with such sharp opinions deserves the honor of my full attention.”
Shela said nothing, but there was a flicker of amusement behind her eyes.
Salitha, still several paces back, was already rolling her shoulders, suppressing a groan. “Ugh, justiciary types. Always showing up when the wine runs out.”
Hannya walked on, the quiet of her steps betraying none of the volcanic irritation bubbling just below her composure.
‘I swear, if this Capital cur interrupts another moment of you, darling… I’ll let him bark. And then I’ll give him a reason to howl.’
Her hand flexed beneath her sleeve.
‘But it’s fine. It’s fine. You wouldn’t want me getting too emotional; stoic men don’t like that, even when they say they do. I’m sure you’ll laugh about this later when I tell you. We’ll laugh together. Right after I put his head on a pike.’
~~~
The northern gate had not been opened in two weeks.
It wasn’t commonly used, not for guests. That gate faced the jagged slope of the mountain pass, and storms often curled there like sleeping beasts. Most visitors came through the flower and vine-covered southern causeway, where the dreammist bloomed and banners waved soft greetings.
But Norm was no visitor.
He was a warrant wrapped in muscle, born to kick in the wrong doors at the worst times.
The moment the gate began to grind open, slow and reluctant, as if even the fortress itself disapproved, his voice rolled through like a horn blast.
“Open it faster, unless you’d like your warding sigils personally audited by the Capital’s Arcanic Council!”
A row of fortress guards flinched, even though none had been accused of wrongdoing. Norm’s words didn’t accuse. They simply expected guilt.
He stepped into view with no fanfare, only force.
Three-star devil. A justiciary badge swung from a heavy iron chain across his chest. His uniform was dark grey and iron-stitched, tailored more like a hunter’s than a bureaucrat’s. Twin swords rested against his back in high cradles, and a black metal muzzle hung loose from his belt, not for himself, but as a warning.
A cruel joke of a prop given by the devils he served.
But Norm didn’t mind. He respected the hierarchy.
He was indeed a dog, barking and biting when needed.
It was his calling.
Behind him marched five soldiers from the capital’s Order of Obedience, clad in ash-cloak livery and bearing rods of judgment carved from petrified angel bone.
Dreammist curled around them like fog recoiling from a flame.
The guards at the gate scrambled to send word. But they were too slow.
Norm didn’t wait.
He stomped forward onto the fortress bridge, boots ringing out over the smooth stone like a war drum.
“I am Norm of Chain Post Thirty-Seven,” he bellowed. “Enforcer of High Council Authority. Investigator of Noble Conduct. Binder of False Oaths and Biter of Hands Left Unwatched!”
His breath fogged in the cold air. His aura followed a moment later, heavy, angular, and cold. Law made flesh.
By the time Hannya arrived, trailed by Shela and Salitha, the courtyard had drawn a crowd. Dream knights in partial armor, junior officials, a few whispering merchants, and a cluster of wide-eyed acolytes.
Hannya walked without urgency, though her presence settled across the courtyard like snow, quiet, perfect, and impossible to ignore.
She came to a stop ten paces from Norm, hands folded calmly in front of her, veil drawn, back straight.
“Chain Post Thirty-Seven,” she said smoothly. “We weren’t expecting a visit. You could have sent a request ahead of time. I might’ve prepared tea.”
“I don’t drink with criminals.” Norm snapped.
Gasps rippled through the onlookers. The Dream Knights tensed.
Shela’s hand twitched near her sword. Salitha’s eyes narrowed.
But Hannya?
She simply tilted her head.
“Is that your opening claim?” she asked.
“I’m not here to make claims,” Norm barked. “I’m here to retrieve a body. A noblewoman was executed on your land, Suziana the 12th Luxuria of the Velvet Wine Line, one of the vouched names of the Northern court. And she’s dead.”
“She was killed,” Hannya corrected softly, “after attempting assassination and magical subversion inside my fortress.”
“She was nobility,” Norm said. “and nobility are tried. Not slaughtered.”
Hannya’s veil stirred faintly in the wind.
“She was tried.”
“In what court?” Norm growled.
Hannya took one step forward. Only one. But it rippled through the gathered onlookers like thunder.
“In mine.”
Norm’s soldiers shifted uncomfortably. Even the petrified rods they carried seemed to hum with tension.
The dog’s lips curled.
“So that’s how it is,” he said. “You’ve grown too fond of your little mountain palace. Deciding who lives and dies like you're council approved.”
She didn’t reply.
He stepped forward.
“I’ll say this once; I want the body. I want the names of the witnesses. I want the records. And if I don’t get them…” He cracked his neck. “...I will get them.”
From the shadows of an archway, Baku’s voice drifted through like lazy smoke.
“And then what, mutt? Bark again?”
Norm flinched. His eyes flicked toward the sound, and his eyes widened slightly.
Dream Eater? Not bedridden or locked in his castle?
So the rumors were indeed true.
Hannya’s hands remained folded. Her tone never rose.
“Careful, Chain Dog. This house has no leash. And its patience is… selective.”
Norm’s jaw worked in silence for a moment, tension rippling down his neck like iron wire wound too tight.
“I am here on authority of the Capital Council,” he said finally, voice low but projected. “And I will not be stalled by veiled performance.”
He turned halfway, addressing the gathered onlookers now, Dream Knights, fortress staff, curious acolytes, and a handful of minor nobles trying to look like they weren’t listening too closely.
“The suspect was Suziana of the Velvet Wine Line,” he declared. “A noble scion of the Pleasure Faction and one vouched for by the Northern Bloc. Her death was never authorized. No transport permits. No tribunal records submitted to Council archives. No testimony. No appeals. She was consumed.”
His voice struck the air like a whip.
“This was not judgment. This was gluttony.”
Murmurs stirred the courtyard.
Hannya didn’t flinch. Her hands remained gently folded in front of her. Her voice, when it came, was soft, like breath against glass.
“And yet,” she said, “your tone suggests I should feel shame.”
Norm’s mouth twisted.
Salitha stepped forward, her charm aura brushing the edge of the crowd, soft, tasteful, defensive. “Council Dog,” she said sweetly, “do you even understand what you’re demanding?”
Norm’s lip curled. “Justice.”
“No,” Shela said flatly. “You’re asking for a body. And I hope you understand the irony.”
The courtyard quieted. Several Dream Knights tensed. Norm’s soldiers exchanged glances. One adjusted his grip on a judgment rod carved from petrified angel bone.
Norm didn’t reply.
Because he already knew the truth.
There would be no body.
Suziana hadn’t just been executed.
Hannya had eaten her. Whole.
And when a devil consumes another with full dominance, spirit, flesh, essence, nothing remains. No bones. No heart. No eyes to bury.
Only ash.
And ash does not testify.
He had known all of this before crossing the pass.
But still he came.
Because appearances mattered. Performances mattered. And the council needed to be seen making noise, even if they knew it wouldn’t change a damn thing.
He straightened, adjusting the weight of his badge-chain across his chest.
“You think a vanished corpse means I’ll walk away? That your silences and silks will protect you?”
“I don’t need silence,” Hannya replied. “I have presence.”
Her veil didn’t move, but the world around her did.
A breath passed through the crowd.
Not wind, something deeper. A psychic inhalation. A wave of will.
Onlookers blinked too quickly. Some straightened, others flushed faintly. Even Norm’s soldiers shifted uncomfortably.
Charm Laws. Laced through presence and heavy as a mountain. Not an attack. Not compulsion.
Just truth, wrapped in reverence.
“You may have law on parchment,” Hannya said, “but parchment doesn’t rule these mountains. People do. And these people remember what Suziana tried to do here.”
She stepped forward once.
“Would you like them to testify?”
Norm’s glare moved across the faces gathered. Most avoided his gaze.
He growled. “False loyalty. Fear isn’t truth.”
“No,” Hannya said. “But it’s useful.”
She let a faint smile bloom beneath her veil.
“If you need proof, I can offer you ash. There’s still some near the garden. I made sure to scatter it evenly.”
Scattered, uneasy laughter followed. One of the junior nobles chuckled into his sleeve.
Norm’s jaw locked.
But before he could speak again, another presence swept into the courtyard.
Baku.
He stepped into full view, no longer leaning, no longer slow. His boots echoed like hammers, his gourd swinging lazily from one hand.
Then…
His aura flared.
The Dreammist recoiled.
The weight from him cracked stone.
Even the sun behind the clouds felt dimmer for a breath.
Norm’s pupils constricted.
‘He’s no longer leaking. No longer ill. Whatever weakness Baku once carried, the wounds from the Acedia agents were gone.’
Norm felt the power instinctively; ancient, grounded, and heavy with punishment.
He could die here. Right now.
Baku smiled lazily. “We done posturing? Or does the Council Dog want to gnaw on a pillar and hope it bites back?”
Norm didn’t answer.
His eyes went to Hannya.
Then to the gate.
Then up, toward the mountain, the fissure, the veil of rising power above them all.
“I’ll be filing an inquiry.” he said through clenched teeth.
“You already have.” Hannya grinned.
He turned. Walked.
His boots made no thunder.
And for once, the dog didn’t bark.
Norm left without a word.
No threat. No warning.
But that silence hung heavier than any vow. His soldiers followed, heads low, discipline fraying at the edges. They didn’t look back. Not at the gates. Not at Hannya. Certainly not at Baku.
But as his boots vanished beyond the northern pass, no one relaxed.
Salitha exhaled slowly and brushed dust from her robes with unnecessary precision. “He’ll be back,” she muttered. “This isn’t over.”
“No,” Shela said. “It isn’t.”
The Dream Knights gradually dispersed, muttering to one another in tightly controlled clusters. The acolytes returned to their routes. The nobles drifted back to their balconies and lounges, faces calm, hearts rattled.
But Shela didn’t move.
She stood beside Hannya, eyes sharp, arms folded.
Hannya turned her head slightly. “Something on your mind?”
“You were too calm.”
“That’s good, isn’t it?”
“No.”
Shela’s voice was flat. Unblinking.
“You didn’t flinch when he said the Capital Council’s name. You didn’t flinch when he said Suziana’s name. You didn’t flinch when he said ‘gluttony.’”
Hannya smiled beneath her veil. “Kikiki, that’s an awful lot of flinching for one conversation.”
“You ate her.”
The wind tugged gently at the edges of Hannya’s robe. The courtyard was otherwise quiet.
“I did,” she replied, evenly. “Would you like to lodge a complaint?”
Shela didn’t blink. “No. But I would like to understand.”
“Understand what?”
Shela’s eyes narrowed slightly.
“That thing in the temple. The chained statue. The one you pray to when you think no one’s listening.”
Hannya’s head tilted. “I pray publicly.”
“You fantasize privately.”
For a breath, nothing moved. Not even the mist.
“I’m not asking you to explain the devouring,” Shela said. “I’m asking what part of it felt… sacred.”
That word hung in the air like a drawn blade.
Sacred.
Hannya didn’t answer right away.
Instead, she turned, beginning to walk slowly toward the interior halls. Shela followed.
“I don’t expect you to agree with everything I do,” Hannya said softly. “But we all worship something. Yours is control. Salitha’s is influence. Suziana’s was comfort.”
“And yours?” Shela asked.
Hannya stopped just beneath the archway, her silhouette framed by twilight.
“Mine is greatness,” she whispered. “Even when no one else can see it yet.”
That was not the answer Shela expected.
And it rattled her more than she would admit.
They walked a while longer in silence, until finally Hannya paused beside a pillar laced with drifting silver vine.
“Norm will return.” she said.
Shela nodded. “With Council backing. Maybe more. Probably under the excuse of ‘clarifying jurisdiction.’”
“He’ll come for Baku,” Hannya said. “Not for me.”
“Because he saw it.”
Shela remembered the moment too well; the shift in the mist, the heaviness in the air, the subtle way Baku’s presence filled the courtyard like a volcanic god remembering how to breathe.
Norm had seen it. Felt it.
He came here expecting to flex against a faction in disarray. But Baku was no longer wounded. No longer slipping through cracks.
And that changed everything.
“He’ll petition the Council to declare Baku’s recovery a threat,” Shela murmured. “Maybe frame it as unauthorized augmentation. Or pact violation.”
Hannya smiled faintly beneath her veil. “Let him.”
Shela exhaled. “You’re not worried?”
“I’m always worried,” Hannya said. “That’s why I win.”
She turned away at last, leaving Shela at the corridor's edge. The last rays of sun melted against her figure, dyeing her robe in gold.
‘He’ll come back, darling. And when he does… I’ll be one step closer to breaking the chains that hold you down.’ Hannya promised.
Back in her chest, the prayer still lingered.
The dream of a god in chains.
And the devil who would tear open the abyss to reach him.
Comments
Dosse2112
We truly are Hannya and you are the councils fog, the way you don't just upload 100 chapters a day...
Butch Perterson
PLEASE 😭😭😭
Cosmoros Subs
Pain
